No One a Quieter
by lye tea
Summary: Ghosts never made good lovers. /Matt x Halle/


**No One a Quieter**

Dead men never died, never completely.

They managed to impart just enough of themselves (onto others or badly tailored memories and desire) to leave a lasting impression. Rising beyond graves and incantations of religions, of secular _wishing_, of…

She lost track. The alarm sounded off, signaling the commencement of a new day, and already, she is wadding through a morass of jagged-cut thoughts and foresworn truths. _Maybe truth never existed._

Hal picked up her lighter and lit up a cigarette, air rising—condensing into the cheap, Western incense of make-shift sepulchral parlors and temples. And then, she remembered how she loathed smoking (and smokers) and how the hell did this get here?

Like it was accidental (the recalling of events, simple and natural but still felt wrong) like it was just the next sequence up (up at the edge of a day-old, nosy world).

_This was his…_

Near had said that, so long ago. Before the third, fourth, fifth—however many surfacing, evanescent copycats they had to hunt—Kira they found. He had pressed the thin, cold metal into her hands, nodded (shrugging, part-down, glancing to the side) as if she were meant to keep it. A memento (the heirloom of a man enmeshed in her too-abundant sympathy).

Even now, she still hadn't discovered his identity, only a name and a trinket.

--

He died like a hero, spine perfectly erect, facing the jeering crowds (gasping and teetering from horror and amusement—the many fools) and then he crumpled. His knees didn't buckle, only wobbled as the last of his strength was spent (smiling). Forced to walk on Achilles' heels, pursuing the deranged path of Hercules, Matt died like any mythological body else.

Head soaring and unafraid. Firm to the ground, rooted to the sunken concrete of the modern jungle.

Slowly he smiled one last time, lips moving to form a cruel jest at the stupid world (cigarette dangling like a dandy's extraneous limb or alien appendage). She held her breath, sucking in what she thought surely was the room's last ounce of oxygen.

And like that, all tense and earnest, Hal watched him die.

Bullets marking up his body like dots to a Seurat painting, deep and incisive, they cut into flesh with murdering, hollow intent. But still he smiled, waving the world goodbye along with its last shred of poise and aplomb.

Because they were all animals.

– were all nothing

(as yellow-skinned, damned ugly cowards)

– were all the vestiges of an empire that died when the saints plunged stakes into their hearts

(or Peter upside-down, nailed, and suffocating)

She felt like crying, saw the lurid lights gather around him like cosmic, millennial guidance while his blood continually bloomed out, completing the circle of mortality.

He was nobody, could have passed off as a bystander (except for the Takada abduction). But otherwise, he was fated to wallow in the inglorious gulfs of anonymity. A step behind Mello, an infinity behind the infamy of death.

For his crowning moment, he went down with dignity.

And he looked almost-beautiful, almost-angelic.

--

Frequently Near would approach her all curious and sly, already ready to vastly irritate her.

Near always seemed to know exactly what (depraved) thought was wandering, frolicking along, in her mind. But he never asked (maybe that was the most vexing part) only looked at her with hungry vulture­-eyes, trying to bait her for an answer.

He carried a chocolate (third-way eaten) and she was toying with an unfired (not yet geared up for battle) cigarette.

Awkwardly, they both looked the other way, knowing this was intrusion onto sacrosanct grounds. Traipsing through holy water or sprinkling a graveyard with pixie dust, didn't matter, this was a private moment.

--

A name was nothing comparable to a person.

(a dead name and man even less so)

She fell asleep that night thinking back to the death notes and Matt. And so, it would have been necrophilic and so very loving if she only knew who he was. Because a love lost can't ever be recovered.


End file.
